Alexander

Synopsis: Conquering 90% of the known world by the age of 25, Alexander the Great led his armies through 22,000 miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years. Coming out of tiny Macedonia (today part of Greece), Alexander led his armies against the mighty Persian Empire, drove west to Egypt, and finally made his way east to India. This film will concentrate on those eight years of battles, as well as his relationship with his boyhood friend and battle mate, Hephaestion. Alexander died young, of illness, at 33. Alexander's conquests paved the way for the spread of Greek culture (facilitating the spread of Christianity centuries later), and removed many of the obstacles that might have prevented the expansion of the Roman Empire. In other words, the world we know today might never have been if not for Alexander's bloody, yet unifying, conquest.
Director(s): Oliver Stone
Production: Warner Bros. Pictures
  6 wins & 19 nominations.
 
IMDB:
5.6
Metacritic:
39
Rotten Tomatoes:
16%
R
Year:
2004
175 min
$34,264,081
Website
5,356 Views


Alexander, the army will divide.

Satrapies will revolt.

Without your orders, there'll be war.

We beg you. Tell us who.

Our world is gone now.

I'm the last left alive.

Whether that's a blessing or a curse...

...who by Hades would know.

But I've paid my price...

...in blood.

And in broken dreams.

They say we were the greatest

fighting force ever known to man.

Greater even than the expedition to Troy.

But how can I say it?

How can I tell you what it is like

to be young...

...and to dream big dreams?

To believe when Alexander looked you

in the eye, you could do anything.

Anything.

In his presence, by the light of Apollo,

we were better than ourselves.

Truly, I've known many great men

in my life...

...but only one colossus.

And only now, when old...

...do I understand

who this force of nature really was.

Or do I?

Did such a man as Alexander exist?

Of course not.

We idolize him,

make him better than he was.

Men, all men, reach and fall...

...reach and fall.

In the East, the vast Persian Empire

ruled almost all the known world.

In the West,

the once great Greek city-states...

...Thebes, Athens, Sparta,

had fallen from pride.

For 100 years now, the Persian kings

had bribed the Greeks...

...with their gold

to fight as mercenaries.

It was Philip, the one-eyed,

who changed all this...

...uniting tribes of illiterate sheepherders

from the high and lowlands.

With his blood and guts,

he built a professional army...

...that brought the devious Greeks

to their knees.

He then turned his eye on Persia...

...where it was said the

Great King Darius himself...

...on his throne in Babylon,

feared Philip.

Philip was murdered...

...much to Persia's delight and

perhaps sponsored by their gold.

And Alexander, at 20

became the new ruler of Macedonia.

Announcing revenge

for the death of Philip...

...Alexander liberated

all of the cities of western Asia...

...south to Egypt...

...where he was declared

Pharaoh of Egypt...

...and worshipped as a god.

And finally, he provoked

the rise to battle...

...in the heart of the Persian Empire,

near Babylon.

it was mad.

Forty thousand of us against

hundreds of thousands...

...of barbarian races unknown to us...

...gathered under Darius himself.

East and west had now come together...

...to decide the fate of the known world.

it was the day Alexander

had waited for all his life.

Son of a god.

it was a myth, of course.

At least it started as a myth.

i know.

i was there.

In the crack of the Persian line,

we'll go for the head.

Kill Darius?

The gods have brought him

to us at last.

If I die, it's one Macedonian.

But the Persians, they cannot move

without Darius' command.

Here. Right here, we cut the throat

of the Persian army.

This is madness. You'll never get

within 100 paces of him.

Have you seen the sheer size

of his force?

Not if you hold them on the left,

my brave Parmenion...

...with your son Philotas

for just one, two hours tomorrow.

And you, unbreakable Antigonus,

the center phalanx.

Perdiccas, Leonnatus...

...Nearchus, Polyperchon.

If you pin them on the walls

of your sarissas, here in the center...

...their cavalry will follow me

out to the right.

And when bold Cassander breaks,

stretching their left...

...a hole will open.

Then I and my cavalry-

Our revered Cleitus...

...Ptolemy and Hephaistion.

-will strike through that gap...

...and deal the deathblow

to Darius' head.

Since when, by the light of Apollo, has

cavalry been used to break an infantry line?

What was it we did to

Chaeronea, Parmenion?

Alexander, even with luck, timing, the gods,

they're at least five to our one...

...which means in truth we must rout them

tomorrow, destroy their army completely.

Or we'll be picked apart by bandit tribes

on the long journey home.

Right.

You speak of home and retreat...

...but do you understand, Parmenion?

Babylon's my new home.

Alexander...

...if we must fight...

...do so with stealth.

Use your numbers well. We should attack

tonight when they least expect us.

I didn't cross Asia

to steal this victory, Cassander.

No, you are too honorable for that.

No doubt influenced from sleeping

with Tales of Troy under your pillow.

But your father

was no lover of Homer's.

The lands west of the Euphrates, Alexander,

the hand of his daughter in marriage.

Since when has a Greek

been given such honors?

There are not honors, Parmenion,

they're bribes...

...which the Greeks

have accepted too long.

Do you forget that

the man who murdered my father...

-... lies across the valley floor?

-Come, Alexander...

...we're still not really sure if it was

Persian gold behind the assassination.

But that is no matter!

Your father taught you never to surrender

your reason to your passion.

Now I urge you...

...with all my experience, regroup.

Fall back to the coast,

raise a larger force.

I would, if I were Parmenion.

But I am Alexander.

And no more than Earth has two suns

will Asia bear two kings.

These are my terms.

And if Darius isn't a coward

who hides behind his men...

...then he'll come to me tomorrow.

And when he bows down to Greece...

...Alexander will be merciful.

By Ares' chains, he has got balls, men.

I mean, give the man his due,

Parmenion.

And, lads, feast tonight,

for tomorrow we will dine in Hades.

I've seen one before.

It was still alive.

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Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Stone came to public prominence between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s for writing and directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, in which he had participated as an infantry soldier. Many of Stone's films primarily focus on controversial American political issues during the late 20th century, and as such that they were considered contentious at the times of their releases. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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